


Ties

by lategoodbye



Series: Oh, rage is desire. [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Character Study, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 21:14:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6025233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lategoodbye/pseuds/lategoodbye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>None of this means anything. They'll be lost, Ren thinks, if ever it does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ties

The door panel slides open with a soft hiss and in the artificial glow of the hallway lights the shadows come alive. They reveal a spacious antechamber, scarcely furnished: a desk, three chairs, a panorama viewport whose shutters are currently closed. Two men stand in the doorway, and for once they're hesitating. Their silhouettes are mirrored on the polished floor. Distorted by the light they linger and draw unmoving shapes against the walls – like a story that has yet to be told. 

The man who enters first has his hands clasped behind his back, and it crinkles the perfect shape of his uniform.

“Lights,” he commands, and instantly the room is bathed in a satisfactory daylight-like glow. He moves over to a second door panel, secure in the knowledge that it matters little if his companion follows – but follow he does, his strides long and unafraid and purposeful. Layers of black fabric loosely contour the shape of his body. He's faceless, and clipped to his belt he carries an ancient symbol of destruction. 

When he enters a second room – this one smaller but no less functional: a bed, a small table, a chair, a locker, another viewport – he stops and watches impassively as the other man begins undressing. They've done this before. How many times he doesn't know but he's begun to memorise the freckled shoulders, pale skin and slender hips. They bruise easily under his careless touch, and at first it was tantalising to watch purple shadows bloom underneath his fingertips. Such power he'd held over the other man that he had made the landscape of his skin admit to things he'd never speak of loud. And yet, he's come to realise, it all amounts to little compared to an altogether softer touch. His hands are not made to caress, so he knows – so he's been told – but when he draws feather-light shapes on the other man's skin he's rewarded not with carefully measured disdain but with breathless moans that escape from parted lips oh so eagerly. 

He finds that he likes this side of the both of them much better.

“Why in the Maker's name are you still dressed?” Hux's fingers curl into the waistband of his underwear. His uniform – jodhpurs, tunic, shirt – lies neatly folded on a chair. Hux looks smaller without it; younger, too, but it's a familiar sight and not quite as thrilling as when Ren first lay eyes on him and realised that the general is but an ordinary man, that when they embrace he usually looms over him, that when their bodies melt into each other he can feel his hipbones dig into the muscles of his stomach and his ribs strain against his touch.

“Ren, I would suggest you at least make an effort to honour our agreement, or else what's the point?”

The hiss of his helmet as it opens is satisfactory enough of a reply that he can feel Hux relax against the currents of the Force that flow through them both. Ren catches the roll of green eyes as he lets the heavy weight of his mask drop to the floor, but only because he knows to watch for the man's reaction. Hux's gaze lingers on. It's as if he still can't quite bring himself to reconcile his featureless rival with the man who now stands in his private chambers, unmasked and unarmed, and watches him undress.

“What?” Ren asks, and not for the first time. Unlike the mask, his youthful face betrays his uncertainty. 

“You're not altogether displeasing to look at. I thought you'd know that by now.”

But direct as his reply may be there's still something about the way Hux looks at him, eyebrows raised and mouth slack, that unsettles Ren.

“It's-”

“Yes, yes, I know, It's unimportant. So much so that you hide your face under that shapeless thing by your feet. Now, will you rid yourself of these clothes or-”

He's interrupted by the sound of heavy boots on the polished floor but he doesn't protest as Ren crosses the room and he's swept up into folds of black fabric.

“Lose the gloves at least,” he says, breathless, as their lips part. Their noses almost touch as Ren tugs the leather over his knuckles, lets his warm fingertips run over Hux's cheekbones, his wet lips, his chin, his neck. He's tempted to pull the other man closer but he's learnt by now that even the flicker of his tongue against Hux's mouth is enough to lure him into his embrace. 

And so Hux obliges. 

And although there are goosebumps chasing over his skin he feels feverish against Ren's touch. The heat of his body seeps through the layers of clothing between them and makes him reconsider. It would take but a moment to unfasten his belt and shrug out of the coat and pleated tunic. But then again, Ren finds that it is the contrast between them – the coarse, black texture of his robes and the milky softness of Hux's skin – that spurs him on. So much so that when he attempts to guide them over to the bed and realises that Hux won't budge he no longer grows quite so aimlessly angry. Instead he channels the blazing heat inside his heart and picks him up. Any resistance he encounters is buried underneath as they end up on the bed after all. Then he leans over Hux – all lazy predator – and Hux stares up at him, his breath hot in the hollow of his neck.

“Don't be silly.” he gasps but it's an argument for old time's sake, not quite as forceful as it used to be when they were still vying for dominance on and off the battlefield. These days victories are won far more easily. The hands on his waist aren't gentle, perhaps not even loving, and the man whose kisses leave a wet, hot trail across his jawline isn't his, will never be his, but he's here and he's willing. At last, their battling has turned into a restless dance. And as one of Ren's hands wanders lower, marks the soft skin of Hux's belly, albeit temporarily, with his fingernails he's rewarded with a hiss and a shudder. It's an invitation, he thinks, as he leans back and gazes down at Hux through heavy-lidded eyes. The man won't squirm, any wilful act of weakness has been bred out of him by that damnable father of his, but Ren can feel the hitch of his breath, the twitch of a naked thigh against his side. Hux, too, prefers not to be scrutinised, not when he's at his most vulnerable. 

“Well,” he says as he tilts his head to one side. “You must have something in mind. Get on with it, then, or are you to stare at me all night?”

Ren enjoys the ever growing restlessness in Hux's mind a little while longer. I will not be ridiculed, the corners of Hux's mouth whisper to him. I will not be a trophy, chime in his ever-calculating eyes. I will not become entangled in another man's childish games, his heart spells out beat by beat by beat. 

“I am most decidedly not flattered,” Hux says in an unamused voice usually reserved for numbers and strategies. Ren believes him. There's not much to understanding a man who prefers his rank to his first name. But when he reaches between them Hux is already half-hard. He moans, then, the tone of his voice now gentle and rich, and Ren will never understand how Hux manages to reconcile both halves within him – gentle and commanding, rich and dispassionate – or how anyone can do so with ease when the same predicament overwhelms and unravels him; frayed thoughts raw against an unguarded soul. It makes him mean, being this vulnerable. 

“What would your hopeful young officers say, General, if only they saw you like this?” The rhythm of his hand has turned his own voice deeper. There lies a hunger in his eyes as he searches Hux's face for disapproval: the downward twist of his mouth, perhaps, or the tell-tale crease between his eyebrows. 

It surprises him when Hux arches his back and his eyes drift close. Strands of unruly, ginger hair peek out from where the his head rests on crumpled sheets. He looks nothing like the uptight military strategist that turns his life aboard the Finalizer into an ongoing series of annoyances, and he's uncertain if that realisation has gained him the upper hand or has him exactly where Hux wants him to be. 

He seems content, agreeable even, as he writhes against him.

“I would have them executed. It's regrettable, but-” Another moan. He rolls his hips. “Unavoidable.”

Hux opens his eyes then, and it costs him the touch of Ren's hand as he props himself up on sharp elbows. His eyes shine brightly in the artificial glow of the light panels above. His skin shines, too, and its faint blush paints the lines and angles of his body an inviting colour. Ren's thumbs circle over hipbones, his fingers dig into soft muscle. He watches as Hux leans closer.

“You think too much, Ren. It's unbecoming,” he says. His voice is a promise as he straddles him. A hand reaches between them experimentally but can't quite find its way through thick layers of wool.

Ren pulls him closer then; not protectively, not possessively – defiantly, maybe. One of Hux's arms snakes around his neck. Fingers entangle themselves in his hair.

They sit like this, entwined in a way that betrays the true nature of their relationship, but Ren finds that his thoughts, as so often, won't let him be.

“I don't care about any of that.” 

And they're so close now that he can almost mistake Hux's sneer for a genuine smile.

“No. That's not it. In fact, you care far too much, and for entirely the wrong reasons.”

Annoyance darkens Ren's brow.

“Your words are meaningless.”

But Hux only laughs. He looks down between them, then shakes his head. His fingers thread through dark hair and draw sweet lies upon his scalp.

“And they're supposed to be. None of this means anything.”

Ren nods. They'll be lost, he thinks, if ever it does.

He kisses Hux, then, and the other man opens his mouth for him eagerly, presses against him until Ren's own arousal becomes difficult to bear. And isn't it favourable to make do with what they have, he thinks absent-mindedly as he begins stroking Hux again. They're trapped somewhere between chaos and order, and although a balance has yet to be found – might never be acquired – it works to their advantage. Oh, they might never see eye to eye outside this room; they don't do so even now, as Hux grinds his hips against him and buries his face in the crook of his neck. Ren can smell the soap in his hair, and he drinks up the breathless moans that aren't meant for him.

It isn't nearly enough.

There's a strangled yelp, undignified for an officer of Hux's standing but tantalising enough for Ren to hear in the privacy of their secret tryst, as he tips them forward and they end up on top of each other again. It takes a few dizzying seconds for Hux to capture his gaze. Lips are ghosting over his cheek and the fingers in his hair now tug painfully, draw him closer, and Ren is trapped in his embrace, for a moment, until Hux stretches out underneath him and tilts his head back in surrender.

“Please, Ren.” His voice isn't quiet, neither is it particularly submissive. A general never asks for anything, but he might roll his eyes at the ceiling and relax into whatever relief Ren will grant him. “Please please, will you make up your mind?”

And Ren can't help him himself.

“Are you begging?”

He's rewarded with flushed cheeks and vexed frustration. Hux has never been more attractive to him.

“You heard me,” is the only concession with which he's wiling to part.

And so, after a little consideration that tugs at the corners of his mouth, Ren shifts his weight, moves backwards until, if he leans over Hux just so, he can comfortably settle between his thighs. When he takes him into his mouth he does so slowly, and he misses neither the appreciative hiss that escapes between Hux's clenched teeth, nor his eyes, pupils wide, as they watch his lips, hints of his tongue, licking and sucking and – Hux gasps deliciously – nibbling ever so carefully. Cheeks hollow and chin wet, Ren lets his eyes drift close and his hands explore. It comes to no surprise to him that his own desire is amplified by his strong connection to the Force, and so his idle thoughts paint a vivid picture in his mind: two currents clashing in the turbulent sea. He has a flair for the dramatic, Ren has been told many times in another life, but the allegories before his mind's eye soon dissolve themselves into simpler shapes: Hux in his crisp uniform, issuing orders with detached clarity and a sour expression on his face. Now, if Ren were to look up, he would see tousled hair, sweat caught in the crook of collarbones, a back that arches most beautifully. 

And so, knowing that it is him who's lured this strict, this unforgiving man into relinquishing any remnant of self-control, he doesn't mind the hand in his hair urging him to dip in lower, go faster, swallow deeper, swirl his tongue just so. If he could read his thoughts, Ren wonders, what would he find there? Are there hidden, compartmentalised depths to Hux's mind even now that he squirms underneath him? Ren almost hopes so because the irony of it has turned these fleeting moments between them from distraction into need.

And when Hux comes in his mouth, and Ren digs his fingers into his bucking hips to keep him from straining upwards, and Hux turns his head, the name on his lips muffled not by rigorous self-discipline but by the arm draped over his face, the all-encompassing turmoil of his orgasm is enough to sate the restlessness in Ren and silence his thoughts.

“Who knew you had it in you, Ren?” Hux quite casually remarks, later, as he steps out of the fresher dressed only in the black regulation underwear that is issued to every officer, every stormtrooper of the First Order. His hair is slicked back, and the faint lines around his mouth turn his amusement into mockery.

“I echo the sentiment, General.”

His helmet's vocabulator transforms Ren's voice into an emotionless crackle. Hux, now alert and visibly uncomfortable, stands up straighter. His gaze flickers over to where his uniform lies folded on the chair by the bed. He doesn't look up but Ren can feel the familiar anger welling up inside him as he leaves Hux's private quarters behind him. It'll be enough, he knows, to fuel many more of these encounters.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic shares its title with the Years & Years song of the same name. It's part of [a fanmix I made](https://8tracks.com/lategoodbye/oh-rage-is-desire) when I first descended into kylux hell.


End file.
